Warwickshire's Industrial Railways

City of Birmingham Gas Department

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• Coal Contracts, Suppliers and Wagons by Keith Turton
• City of Birmingham Gas Department Locomotives by Robert Ferris

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Coal Contracts, Suppliers and Wagons by Keith Turton

Indisputably the biggest consumer of coal within the entire Birmingham conurbation were the gasworks of the City of Birmingham. Four of the five works were rail connected, those at Windsor Street, Saltley and Nechells in Warwickshire and Swan Village, on the Great Western at West Bromwich in Staffordshire. Windsor Street was connected to the ex- L&NWR at Aston, Saltley was between Washwood Heath Marshalling Yard and the Saltley motive power depot, Nechells was on the opposite side of the Midland Railway to Saltley. The fourth gasworks, and the smallest was Adderley Street, not rail connected but close to the Bordesley Street sidings of the Great Western and the Lawley Street sidings of the Midland Railway, and also served by the adjacent Grand Union Canal.

Much has been written about the Department by Bob Essery and myself in Midland Record and in the first volume of my Private Owner Wagons collection series (Lightmoor Press 2002, but now out of print). This was inspired by my accidental discovery of extensive trading records of the New Hucknall and Blackwell colliery companies held in Nottinghamshire Archives. However, no study has ever been made of the volume of coal transported into Birmingham every day by mainly the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. Frankly, such a detailed study is no longer possible as there are no surviving records which could be used as a starting point.

Therefore an educated guess for 1939 is 1.2 million tons for the gasworks, taken from published contracts, a million tons for the electricity generating stations( estimated) and a quarter of a million tons to cover written contracts of the City's Coal Buying Committee. Taking a round figure of two-and-a half million tons for the City of Birmingham alone, this equates to 50,000 tons a week, 5,000 wagon loads and a hundred-and-ten trainloads of forty to fifty wagons each a week. eighteen trains a day over six days. This is JUST for the City of Birmingham.

To this must be added all of that used by the various gasworks and utilities of Birmingham's environs, Smethwick, Dudley, West Bromwich, Wolverhampton, Sutton Coldfield , Coventry etc. From sample figures taken from Minute Books this adds another 350-400,000 tons annually for gas alone. As I wrote in one of my Private Owner Wagon books, this was all done in the days of steam traction, manual signalling, shunters poles, unbraked wagons, three link couplings, the ubiquitous shovel and thankfully, professional experienced railwaymen at all levels. Yet the Midland Railway and its successor, the LMSR handled it competently, as did the lesser players the L&NWR. and the Great Western.

In this series I have already covered Hams Hall Power Station so, having partly set the scene I will concentrate on the three gasworks served by rail within Warwickshire.

One surprising feature is that from records of all of the LMS engine sheds in Birmingham, there is very little evidence of shunting rosters at any of the gasworks. The Saltley works were serviced by a regular shuttle service from the nearby Washwood Heath This is highly suggestive of trains running direct from marshalling yards such as Toton direct into the Nechells and Windsor Street sidings, the shunting being carried out by ant of the seventeen Gas Department locomotives. After ploughing through over eighty years of Minute Books in the Birmingham Archives, I found no evidence which would support this supposition., except that recorded turn-around time for wagon journeys, if accurate in the 1890s was surprisingly short.

The Saltley shed rostered a single locomotive to work transfers between Washwood Heath and the nearby Saltley gas works. This was Target no. 8, worked by a 3F tender locomotive which worked continuously from 5.55a.m. on Monday mornings to 9.30p.m. on the following Sunday, with a note on the roster which read "liberated for stores as convenient" If this could operate at two hour intervals with 30 wagons per trip, this would move 360 wagons a day , which sounds feasible. There were four other trip workings which included the Duddeston Sidings as part of an extensive journey around the outskirts of Birmingham. but no reference to the Nechells gasworks. The Saltley records do not include trip workings except to the nearby collieries, so it has not been possible to confirm what is blindingly obvious - that trains originated and terminated at the Nechells Sidings.

A similar system may have worked at the Windsor Street gasworks. The main rail connection was to the former L&NWR station of Aston, and shared approach traffic with the extensive Windsor Street public goods sidings. Shunting and short-distance trip working was in the hands of the former L&NWR shed at Aston, with locomotives based at Bescot also appearing.

The 1917 timetable shows Target 130, a 3F tank locomotive working Windsor Street Sidings from 6a.m. to 6.05p.m. daily and target 154, a 2F tender engine, working the gasworks sidings as part of a route which took in Stechford, Bescot and Metropolitan sidings. Target 313, a 6F freight engine, worked from Bescot to Perry Barr, Curzon Street and the gasworks sidings and Target 351 was a 3F tank engine working an 18-hour shunting turn at the Windsor Street sidings.

As most of the supplying collieries were in Yorkshire, Derbyshire and the northern part of Nottinghamshire, loaded traffic would have been concentrated at the former Midland Railway Toton Marshalling Yard and was of sufficient volume to warrant through trains direct to the sidings of each gasworks , one known route was to the Duddeston Sidings for the Nechells works and supplies for Windsor Street could have been worked via Wichnor Junction and the South Staffordshire line via Sutton Coldfield or Bescot. Some coal was obtained from Staffordshire and would have been worked via Stafford to either Washwood Heath or Bescot. It is highly likely that coal for the Swan Village Works, in Staffordshire, served by the former Great Western Railway, would have been supplied mainly from the North Staffordshire coalfield via the LMS and transferred to the Great Western at the Bushbury marshalling yards near Wolverhampton.

Contracts with such collieries as New Hucknall (Notts), Alfreton (Derbyshire) and Frickley( Yorkshire) which called for between 2000 and 2,500 tons a week, would have been ideal for dedicated through trains to run regularly to keep the supply up. There is some evidence that coking coal for the Stewarts and LLoyds steelworks at Corby was transported by scheduled trainload twice daily from the Tinsley Park Colliery in Yorkshire in wartime and four empty coal wagon trains direct on the return journey to different collieries.

If one wants a more convincing scenario, in the depression year of 1934, a tally was made of how many wagons were in service for Gas Department coal traffic alone. 1,697 owned by the Department, 1,100 on hire by the Department, and 1,400 colliery or contractor owned, a staggering total of 4,197 wagons!! And add to this, several hundred more were required for coke traffic outwards, distributed as far away as Glasgow, tank wagons for by-products of the coking plant,, tar, pitch, creosote, sulphuric acid, etc, for which the Brotherton company had installed a plant at the Nechells gasworks. Bricks, lime, gas oil, iron oxide and gas pipes were regular items of inwards goods in wagon loads.

Coal Contracts in 1939

A total of 24 contracts were let for a little over a million tons of gas coal for 1939 as follows:

Contractor	Tonnage	Colliery of Origin
James Edge	24,000	Chatterley Whitfield (Staffs)
Wilson Carter and Pearson	17,500	Bolsover (Derbyshire)
Alexander Comley	10,000	Riddings (Notts)
Cawood Wharton	18,000	Furnace Hill (Derbyshire)
Newton Chambers	52,000	Thorncliffe (Yorkshire)
Carlton Collieries Association	145,000	Frickley, (Yorkshire) (A)
Stephenson Clarke	45,000	Glapwell (Derbyshire)
Wilson Carter and Pearson	145,000	Alfreton (Derbyshire)
Wilson Carter and Pearson	48,000	Hickleton, Brodworth (Yorks)or Firbeck (Notts)
Denaby Amalgamated Collieries	32,000	Denaby (Yorkshire)
Renwick, Wilton and Dobson `	28,000	Clay Cross (Derbyshire)
Sheffield Coal Company	16,500	Birley (Yorkshire)
SA Scrivener	28,750	Norton and Biddulph (Staffs)
New Hucknall Collieries	120,000	New Hucknall, Bentinck (Notts)
H Downing	20,000	Sneyd (Staffs)
Alexander Comley	24,000	Swanwick (Derbyshire)
Wilson Carter and Pearson	40,000	Sutton (Notts)
J & G Wells	12,500	Holbrook (Derbyshire)
Staveley Coal and Iron Company	30,000	Markham Main (Derbyshire)
Wharncliffe Silkstone Colliery	20,000	Wharncliffe Silkstone (Yorkshire)
JC Abbott & Company	20,000	Tibshelf (Notts)
Wilson Carter and Pearson	50,000	Pinxton (Derbyshire)
JC Abbott & Company	30,000	Glapwell (Derbyshire )
JC Abbott & Company	40,000	Waleswood (Yorks)

Note (A): optional colliery was Grimesthorpe.

Additionally, a further 60,000 tons were required for the Mond Gas plant and 10,000 tons for locomotives and steam raising equipment. The latter may have been covered by the contract with the above-mentioned Bolsover collieries. One spot purchase from the Haunchwood Colliery for the Mond Gas plant was for 24,000 tons. Of the above, Wilson Carter and Pearson and JC Abbott were long established large-scale Birmingham coal factors, Alexander Comley, H Downing and SA Scrivener were also Birmingham-based. Remarkably the third of the major Birmingham factors, Evesons (Coals) Ltd. are not to be found.

Wagons

The City of Birmingham was the largest municipal operator of Private Owner wagons in the country. When wagon pooling was effected in 1939, 2,074 wagons were handed over.

It was in 1862 that the first deliveries of coal by rail were effected. Originating from Staveley in Derbyshire, the wagons must have been owned by the supplier or a contractor as it was not until 1880 that the idea of a wagon fleet began to take shape. After trials with various types of wagon then available an order was placed with the Birmingham builder Brown and Marshalls in that year. They were wooden bodied, dumb buffered and of eight tons capacity. In 1895 (when 300 wagons of assorted makes and designs were owned) the same builder supplied fifty steel-bodied hoppers of a design which eventually numbered over 500 wagons.

A continuous numbering system was introduced in 1895 starting at one and continued until 1930 when no. 2706 was placed in service. Almost all of the intermediate numbers have been accounted for. Additional wagons were hired from the British Wagon Co to cover supplies from the Markham Main Colliery near Chesterfield, This set a precedent for hiring wagons, as many as 1,500, when needed which continued until wagon pooling in 1939.

By 1905 over a thousand wagons were owned, at least 150 of which were nearly-new wagons purchased second hand. It was also in 1905 that a hundred 20-ton steel hopper wagons were ordered from the Brush Company of Loughborough. These were a total failure and only thirteen were delivered, to be banned by the Midland Railway from its rails.

Between 1910 and 1911 a hundred second hand wagons were purchased from the London coal merchant FB Cameron & Company (Nos 1101-1200), fifty from the New Monckton Colliery of Yorkshire (Nos 1051-1100) and a hundred new each from Thomas Moy of Peterborough (Nos 1201-1300) and the Metropolitan Wagon Co. of Birmingham (Nos 1301-1400). 1913 brought another 150 new, 75 each from the Midland Wagon Company just down the road from the Saltley gasworks (Nos 1401 -1475) and the Doncaster builder Thomas Burnett. (Nos 1476-1550.)

A further 300 followed in 1915-6 from Scottish builders Hurst Nelson and RY Pickering (Nos 1601-1900).

With all of this enlargement of the wagon fleet, there was still a chronic wagon shortage, This affected all collieries and consumers due to the war effort. Thousands of wagons were lying in wagon works awaiting repair, and the City of Birmingham calculated that 20% was lying idle. 187 wagons, or 16% of the available fleet, stood motionless at one repairer alone. Part solution of the situation came in 1918 in the formation of Wagon Repairs Ltd. in an office within sight of two Birmingham gasworks. This was an overall scheme in which wagons of any owner and any builder could be sent to the nearest of the company's outstations for repairs. It was not accepted immediately, but by 1926 most of the country was covered and the formation of the wagon repair company had noticeably reduced, but not entirely solved, the perennial wagon shortage.

Independently, the Gas Department had been thinking on the same lines, and in 1920 a wagon repair facility was set up at the Saltley gasworks. It was eventually built at Washwood Heath around a siding which was an extension of he Bromford Bridge Sidings. Experienced wagon builders and repairers were recruited from the various Birmingham wagon works and within a few weeks repaired wagons were being released to traffic. So successful was this enterprise that it was considered that new wagons could also be built there.

Accordingly early in 1924 six sets of ironwork and running gear were purchased from an existing builder, timber yards were scoured for 16-foot lengths of white spruce deals seven inches wide by three inches thick This may not have been difficult, as there were three other companies in Birmingham using identical timber. In no time wagons numbered 2101 to 2106 were completed. So successful was the experiment that in the next seven years a further six hundred, numbered from 2107 to 2706 were built at the gasworks, at least one was turned out every week.

(In my Private Owner Wagons, a First Collection, wagons numbered 2357-2606 were not positively identified and wrongly assumed, from missing entries in the LMS Wagon Registers, to have been built for the Electricity Department or not built at all. This was subsequently corrected when their existence was found, out of sequence, with unused registration numbers of the Midland Railway)

Year	Wagon Nos	Type	Builder	Notes
Pre-1894	Various	Various	Various
1894	1-50	Iron Hopper	Brown and Marshalls	(A)
1894	51-200	Iron Hopper	Brown and Marshalls	(A)
1902	476-500	10 ton Wooden	Metropolitan
1895	501-700	Iron Hopper	Metropolitan	(A)
1899	701-800	Steel Hopper	Midland	(A)
1901	951-1000	Wooden Open	GR Turner	(B)
1905	1001-1013	20t Hopper	Brush	(C)
1905	1014-1050	10 ton	unknown	(D)
1905	1051-1100	10 ton Wooden	SJ Claye	(E)
1910	1101-1200	10 ton Wooden	GR Turner	(F)
1911	1201-1300	12 ton Wooden	Metropolitan	Hoppered Interior
1911	1301-1400	12 ton Wooden	Thomas Moy
1913	1401-1475	12 ton Wooden	Midland
1913	1476-1550	12 ton Wooden	Thomas Burnett
	1551-1600	Unknown	Unknown
1915	1601-1800	12 ton Wooden	Hurst Nelson
1917	1801-1900	12 ton Wooden	Pickering
	1901-1950	10 ton Wooden	Gittus	(G)
	1951-2000	12 ton Wooden	Hurst Nelson	(G)
	2001-2100	12 ton	Unknown	(G)
1924	2101-2106	12 ton Wooden	Own Workshops
	2107-2156	12 ton Wooden	Own Workshops
1925	2157-2256	12 ton Wooden	Own Workshops
1926	2257-2306	12 ton Wooden	Own Workshops
1927	2307-2356	12 ton Wooden	Own Workshops
1927	2357-2406	12 ton Wooden	Own Workshops
1928	2407-2456	12 ton Wooden	Own Workshops
1929	2457-2606	12 ton Wooden	Own Workshops
1930	2607-2706	12 ton Wooden	Own Workshops
1934	2907-3006	12 ton Wooden	Metropolitan
1935	4501-4750	12 ton Wooden	Metropolitan

Notes:

(A) These wagons were all fitted with bottom doors operated by a handwheel, an invention of Mr. Hunt of the Gas Department and Mr Shackleford of the wagon builder.
(B) Second-hand ex JK Harrison of London. Registered by the Great Central Railway.
(C) This was an order for 100 20-ton wagons placed with the Brush Company of Loughborough. Only thirteen wagons no's 1001-1013 were delivered but transit over the rails of the Midland Railway was refused , the registration plates recalled and the balance of the order was cancelled. After lying idle for several years, they were sent to the wagon builder SJ Claye of Long Eaton, where their steel bodies were removed and timber bodies were substituted.
(D) Purchased second hand from the North Central Wagon Company and their builders are unknown.
(E) Purchased secondhand from the New Monckton Colliery Company of Yorkshire, their numbers 1065 to 1114. Built by SJ Claye of Long Eaton.
(F) Purchase secondhand from London coal merchant FB Cameron & Company, their numbers 927 to 1026. Built originally by SJ Claye of Long Eaton.
(G) The 200 wagons numbered 1901 to 2100 were purchased at very close intervals and the running numbers were not individually recorded, although their origins were. Fifty of the wagons were new from Hurst Nelson of Motherwell, fifty were second hand from Buxton Lime Firms Ltd of Buxton and built by W Gittus of Penistone, Yorkshire. The latter were part of a hundred-wagon purchase, the other fifty went to the City of Birmingham Electricity Department as foundation for their wagon fleet. The final hundred wagons were purchased from the Birmingham coal factor JC Abbott & Company. The maker or makers are unknown. Fifty one of these wagons bore coke rails for coke traffic and may have been built by the small Mansfield builder Clough & Company.

At this point its prudent to examine the effectiveness of the Birmingham wagon fleet in terms of utilisation, in other words how long it took for an empty wagon to leave Birmingham and return fully laden at the sidings of one of the gasworks. In 1900 the gasworks management recorded that the trip time was eight days. Eight days in the operating conditions of the Midland (and other) railway companies?. This is almost exactly half of the time that the Bolsover Colliery Company, one of the largest in the Midlands, the Griff Colliery at Nuneaton, and the City of Birmingham Gas Department were each recording in 1938 and 1939!! The only possible explanations are that their 1900 paperwork was askew, or that complete trains were run from gasworks to colliery and return by-passing marshalling yards and stopping only for operational requirements. There is no evidence to support this theory in the form of timetables or special train notices, and unless some confirmation material is forthcoming the Gas Department's version has to be accepted with caution.

Finding the Department's wagons outside of Birmingham itself was relatively easy. On main lines of the Midland and the L&NWR and their successor, the LM&SR radiating into Birmingham from the coalfields of Derbyshire, north Nottinghamshire and all of Yorkshire, plus North Staffordshire and occasionally North Wales. But also the company's coke wagons were regularly seen on the former L&NWR main line into London, particularly around Berkhamstead.

Wartime and Nationalisation

Like every other wagon that was privately owned (with exceptions for those designated Special Purpose) upon nationalisation of the railways, the Birmingham fleet, now part of the wagon pool, no longer technically existed, joining those ranging from vast colliery companies, coal merchants, giants of industry and quarrymen, paper millers, woolen magnates and electricity generating stations to one-man-and-a-horse coal merchants and village grocers, over 600,000 in all, never to return as nationalisation of the coal industry and the railways assumed their ownership, battered and bruised but still working.

Unsung, barely recorded, the transportation means of industry, they were vital cogs in the Industrial Revolution and the dark days of the second world war. to be remembered and chronicled only by a dedicated handful, working surreptitiously and under cover whose ranks are thinning and who still remember them in their profusion and glory.

Ref: misc_kt383 Midrail Photographs A typical of the style of wagon used by the Department in the last years of the nineteenth century

Ref: misc_kt384 Cusworth Hall Museum One of 75 wagons built by Thomas Burnett of Doncaster in 1913 in an early attempt to standardise the wagon fleet

Ref: misc_kt388 Birmingham Central Library Wagon No 1225 is one of a hundred built by the Metropolitan Wagon company of Washwood Heath

Ref: misc_kt389 Brush Company Wagon No 1001 was the first to be competed by the Brush Company at the Loughborough works

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City of Birmingham Gas Department Locomotives by Robert Ferris

The City of Birmingham Gas Department had four rail connected sites in Warwickshire. Two of these had been acquired from early private gas suppliers in 1875. There was no rail connections as originally both of these Gas Works had their coal deliveries from canal boats. Over the next five years the Gas Plant at both sites was modernised, with additionally; rail sidings, coal handling equipment and connections to mainline railway systems also being installed. A third large rail connected Gas Works was built in Nechells in 1900, followed in 1920 by a railway wagon repair depot. All the Gas Works had tight radius curves requiring operation by locomotives with a short wheelbase. In May 1949 the City of Birmingham Gas Department was nationalised and became No.4 (Birmingham and District) Division of West Midland Gas Board. By 1966, Diesel shunters had replaced the steam locomotives, with one or two steam locomotives being retained on each site to as spare motive power. In December 1972 the West Midland Gas Board became the British Gas Corporation (West Midlands Region) and by 1974 the last of these rail connected sites was closed.

Saltley Gas Works

These works were built by the Birmingham & Staffordshire Gas Light & Coke Co in 1837. Railway sidings with a rail connection were made to the Midland Railway. Wagons were initially moved by horse power, but in 1877 following construction of a new gas purification plant house, a locomotive was purchased. A locomotive shed was also provided. Later the works were rebuilt with new coal handling sidings. The Saltley Gas Works were renamed Nechells East Works in July 1963. These works were closed and demolished in 1969.

Locomotive	Type	Manufacturer	Works No	Date Built	Acquired	Disposal
Forward No 1	0-4-0ST	Black, Hawthorn & Company Ltd, Gateshead 388		March 1876	March 1877 (New)	Swan Village Gas Works (May 1891)
Forward No 2 (Forward No 4)	0-4-0ST	Black, Hawthorn & Company Ltd, Gateshead	419	December 1977	1879 (New)	B’ham Corrugated Iron Co Ltd, Widnes, Lancs
Forward No 23 (Forward No 5)	0-4-0ST	Black, Hawthorn & Company Ltd, Gateshead	933	February 1888	1889 (New)	Scrapped
Forward No 24 (Forward No 6)	0-4-0ST	Black, Hawthorn & Company Ltd, Gateshead	1027	October 1890	1891 (New)	Gas Dept Wagon Repair Depot (circa 1943)
Forward No 25	0-4-0ST	Chapman & Furneaux, Gateshead	1154	1898	1898 (New)	Scrapped (December 1938)
Forward No 26	0-4-0ST	Hawthorn, Leslie & Company Ltd, Forth Bank Works, Newcastle	3081	1914 Rebuilt 1934	1914 (New)	Sold for scrap (May 1953)
No 2	0-4-0ST	Andrew Barclay, Sons & Company Ltd, Caledonia Works, Kilmarnock	1819	January 1924	1936 from Windsor St Gas Works	Gas Dept Wagon Repair Depot (February 1946)
No 3	0-4-0ST	Andrew Barclay, Sons & Company Ltd, Caledonia Works, Kilmarnock	1712	December 1921	1938 from Windsor St Gas Works	Gas Dept Wagon Repair Depot (March 1951)
No 4	0-4-0ST (Grn)	Peckett & Sons Ltd, Atlas Locomotive Works, Bristol	2070	January 1945	1945 (New)	Sold for scrap – Cashmores,

Windsor Street Gas Works

These works were built by the Birmingham Gas Light & Coke Co. In 1880 following construction of new retort house and gas purification plant, railway sidings and a connection was made to the LNWR Goods branch line from Aston (which was being built to serve a new Goods Depot in Rupert Street). The first standard gauge locomotive arrived in 1880. The table gives details of the steam locomotives that worked at Windsor Street Gas Works. The works closed for gas production in February 1974 and rail traffic ceased that year.

Locomotive	Type	Manufacturer	Works No	Date Built	Acquired	Disposal
No 2	0-4-0ST	Black, Hawthorn & Company Ltd, Gateshead	568	September 1880	1880 (New)	Returned to Manufacturer (1892)
No 3	0-4-0ST	Black, Hawthorn & Company Ltd, Gateshead	848	December 1886	1887 (New)	Returned to Manufacturer (1892)
No 2	0-4-0ST	Black, Hawthorn & Company Ltd, Gateshead	1058 New No 7991	February 1892 Rebuilt 1903 Rebuilt 1914	1892 (New)	Gas Dept Wagon Repair Depot (circa 1924)
No 3	0-4-0ST	Black, Hawthorn & Company Ltd, Gateshead	1059	February 1892	1892 (New)	Jever Bros. Port Sunlight (circa 1922)
No 4	0-4-0ST	Chapman & Furneaux, Gateshead	1149	1898 Rebuilt 1909	1898 (New)	Scrapped (1930)
No 1	0-4-0ST	Hawthorn, Leslie & Company Ltd, Forth Bank Works, Newcastle	3183	May 1916	1916 (New)	Swan Village Gas Works (circa 1930)
No 3	0-4-0ST	Andrew Barclay, Sons & Company Ltd, Caledonia Works, Kilmarnock	1712	December 1921	1922 (New)	Saltley Gas Works (1938)
No 2	0-4-0ST	Andrew Barclay, Sons & Company Ltd, Caledonia Works, Kilmarnock	1819	January 1924	1924 (New)	Saltley Gas Works (1936)
No 4 'Windsor'	0-4-0ST	Peckett & Sons Ltd, Atlas Locomotive Works, Bristol	1812	September 1930	1930 (New)	Sold for scrap – Cashmores, Gt Bridge (March 1968)
No 1 'Coronation'	0-4-0ST	Peckett & Sons Ltd, Atlas Locomotive Works, Bristol	1854	February 1932	1932 (New)	Foleshill Gas Works, Coventry
No 2 'Alan'	0-4-0ST	Andrew Barclay, Sons & Company Ltd, Caledonia Works, Kilmarnock	2060	November 1938	1938 (New)	Sold for scrap – Cashmores, Gt Bridge (July 1966)
No 3 (Greenhithe)	0-4-0ST (Gren)	Peckett & Sons Ltd, Atlas Locomotive Works, Bristol	2058	October 1944	1944 (New)	Sold for scrap – Cashmores, Gt Bridge (March 1969)
Forward No 24	0-4-0ST	Black, Hawthorn & Company Ltd, Gateshead	1027	October 1890	March 1944 from Wagon Repair Depot	Returned to Gas Dept Wagon Repair Depot
No 10	0-4-0ST	Hawthorn, Leslie & Company Ltd, Forth Bank Works, Newcastle	3141	September 1915	November 1951 from Nechells Wks	Returned to Nechells Gas Works (April 1952)

In 1880, a temporary narrow (two foot) gauge tramway line was built from the new railway sidings to the existing retort house. When the new extensions were complete this retort house was demolished. No longer required the tramway taken up and the locomotive detailed below was disposed of.

Locomotive	Type	Manufacturer	Works No	Date Built	Acquired	Disposal
	0-4-0ST	Black, Hawthorn & Co Ltd, Gateshead	567	April 1880	1880 (New)	Returned to Manufacturer (March 1887)

Nechells Gas Works

A new Gas Works was opened in 1900 with new railway sidings and a rail connection with Midland Railway. Included in the site was the Gas Department’s Devon St Sidings, which had served a coke storage area. These sidings had been connected to the Midland Railway in June 1892. An unknown Gas Department locomotive had shunted in these sidings at this time. Both the original sidings and new railway works were completed by the London based contractor - John Aird & Sons. The Gas Works closed in 1969. The equipment was dismantled and the railway track was lifted in 1970.

Locomotive	Type	Manufacturer	Works No	Date Built	Acquired	Disposal
Forward No 7	0-4-0TG	Aveling & Porter, Invicta Works, Rochester	4638	October 1900	1900 (New)	Sold for scrap (1924)
Forward No 8	0-4-0ST	Hawthorn, Leslie & Company Ltd, Forth Bank Works, Newcastle	2505	August 1901	1901 (New)	Gas Dept Wagon Repair Depot (April 1932)
Forward No 9	0-4-0ST	Hawthorn, Leslie & Company Ltd, Forth Bank Works, Newcastle	2584	December 1907	1908 (New)	Swan Village Gas Works (circa 1938)
Forward No 10	0-4-0ST	Hawthorn, Leslie & Company Ltd, Forth Bank Works, Newcastle	3141	September 1915	1915 (New)	To Nechells Gas Works from November 1951 to Apr 1952 Sold for scrap (May 1953)
No 7	0-4-0ST	Andrew Barclay, Sons & Company Ltd, Caledonia Works, Kilmarnock	1797	January 1924	1924 (New)	Cannibalised following damage (1958)
No 8	0-4-0ST	Andrew Barclay, Sons & Company Ltd, Caledonia Works, Kilmarnock	1992	January 1932 Rebuilt 1958 from 1797	1932 (New)	Sold for scrap – Cashmores Great Bridge (December 1963)
No 9	0-4-0ST	Andrew Barclay, Sons & Company Ltd, Caledonia Works, Kilmarnock	2061	December 1938	1938 (New)	Scrapped (March 1965)
No 6	0-4-0ST	Avonside Engine Company Ltd, Fishponds, Bristol	1850	May 1920	October 1942 Callender Coal Company Ltd, Falkirk	Scrapped (1956)
No 5	4wVBT	Walker Bros (Wigan) Ltd, Pagefield Ironworks, Wigan	31790	1928	November 1942 Shap Granite Company Ltd,	Shap Gas Dept Wagon Repair Depot (December 1950)
No 11	0-4-0ST OY-S	Peckett & Sons Ltd, Atlas Locomotive Works, Bristol	2081	December 1946	1947 (New)	Swan Village Gas Works (August 1965)
No 10	4wVBT	Sentinel Wagon Works Ltd, Shrewsbury	9617	January 1957	1957 (New)	Sold for scrap – Cashmores Great Bridge (March 1968)

Note. Peckett No 11 (Works No 2081) was purchased privately for preservation at Foxfield Light Railway in August 1949.

Gas Department Wagon Repair Depot

A wagon repair depot was established at Washwood Heath in 1920. A railway connection was provided to the Bromford Bridge marshalling yards of the Midland Railway. The first locomotive was transferred to the depot in 1924. A single locomotive shunted on the site until the depot was closed in 1960.

Locomotive	Type	Manufacturer	Works No	Date Built	Acquired	Disposal
No 2	0-4-0ST	Black, Hawthorn & Co Ltd, Gateshead	1058 New No 7991	February 1892 Rebuilt 1903 Rebuilt 1914	Circa 1924 from Windsor St Gas Works	Sold for scrap (circa 1933)
No 8	0-4-0ST	Hawthorn, Leslie & Co Ltd, Forth Bank Works, Newcastle	2505	August 1901	April 1932 from Nechells Gas Works	Sold for scrap – Cashmores Gt Bridge (March 1954)
Forward No 24	0-4-0ST	Black, Hawthorn & Co Ltd, Gateshead	1027	October 1890	Circa 1943 from Saltley Gas Works	Sold for scrap – Thos W Ward, Adderley Park (1949)
No 2	0-4-0ST	Andrew Barclay, Sons & Co Ltd, Caledonia Works, Kilmarnock	1819	January 1924	February 1946 from Saltley Gas Works	Scrapped (circa 1962)
No 5	4wVBT	Walker Bros (Wigan) Ltd, Pagefield Ironworks, Wigan	31790	1928	December 1950 from Nechells Gas Works	Scrapped on site by Thos W Ward Ltd (1952)
No 3	0-4-0ST	Andrew Barclay, Sons & Co Ltd, Caledonia Works, Kilmarnock	1712	December 1921	March 1951 from Saltley Gas Works	Scrapped (circa 1962)